Monday, November 23, 2009

"[Literature] is that very fragile language which men set between the violence of the question and the silence of the answer."--Roland Barthes

The literature of adolescence raises the great existential questions: what is the meaning of my life? who must I become? must I betray my deepest self in order to be loved and accepted? In this course we will consider the ways these questions have been (un)answered in outstanding works of literature over the past 200 years. Can such novels end authentically without killing off the protagonist or falsifying their premises?

Note: Literature published before 1923 is in the public domain and is therefore freely available as etext on the internet. Many class texts are also available in thrift editions (less than five dollars).